Teacher Center of Broome County

Directions: The Study Group should select one question from each group. All members of the study group should respond to the same question.

Group 1 Questions: (Collaboration/Culture/What People Do?)

·  Which of their activities have been most useful and why?

·  Which activities or experiences challenged your thinking about your practice to the greatest degree (or created the most dissonance)?

·  How did the study group members work together?

·  How did this professional development activity change the collegial learning climate in the school/district?

Group 2 Questions: (Teacher Learning, Comprehension)

·  What have you learned through participation in this professional development?

·  What skills have you developed or enhanced?

·  Which experiences or activities contributed most to this learning?

·  What did educators see as the implications of their learning for their own professional practice?

Group 3 Questions: (Implementation)

·  How have you incorporated the learning from this professional development into your own professional practice?

·  What are you doing differently in your classroom and/or work with students?

·  Are you conscious of what you are doing differently and why?

Group 4 Questions: (Student Learning)

·  How have students benefited from your learning through this professional development?

·  How have their opportunities to learn changed?

·  What do students do differently in class now? (What are they doing now that they were not doing before?)

·  What new or improving skills do they demonstrate? How has their work changed? What learning/skills are evident in their work?

·  How have their attitudes toward learning changed?

·  How has their enjoyment of learning changed?

Learning Innovations – A Division of WestEd 91 montvale Avenue Stoneham, MA 02180

The Teacher Center of Broome County

Teacher Study Group Grant Award

2014-15

FINAL REPORT DUE BY APRIL 13, 2015

DOCUMENT PROCESSES AND OUTCOMES

STUDY GROUP TOPIC: ____Chenango Forks Writing Group______

List of group members: Karon Bielenda, Axie (Alexandra) Roma, Dan Kozlowski,

Mandy Black, Lauren Gridley

The final report must be word-processed and submitted both in print and through e-mail using this form. Send print copy Teacher Center @ WSKG, BOCES Mail Drop #22 and e-mail file to . This report will be posted on the Teacher Center web page at http://teachercenter.info.

Describe the initial goal of the group noting any adjustments that had to be made as time passed.

The purpose of this study group was to provide writing resources such as Kelly Gallagher’s Write Like This and writing experiences to teachers involved in the implementation of the Common Core (CC) writing standards 5-12. Since teachers do not have many chances to write, to analyze their own writing, or to reflect on writing strategies, this study group allowed participants to read about teaching writing and experiment with their own writing to enhance their teaching.
We did change the planned amount of writing we did each session since our discussions about how to modify the strategies described for various academic situations and grade levels took time. Often a meeting leader would modify the writing activities that he or she had planned since our conversation about the first activity had been productive—and it was 5:00 pm!

Describe the ACTION PLAN that the group followed.

The participants met each month for approximately two (2) hours each week. Each meeting we focused on a portion of Gallagher’s text where a participant prepared a writing activity and discussion based on the text chapter. Through the group discussion and writing activities, individuals decided the merits of particular strategies presented.
We did take one week to look at the Common Core and its writing standards.
Each participant kept a journal of their personal writing activities /strategies and reflections based on each week’s chapter focus.

Describe how the action plan was implemented.

Since each person had to prepare as a leader for 2 sessions during the 10 weeks, and the expectation was that other group members did not have to do preparation work each week, the implementation of the action plan worked very well. Group members did not need to prepare for each night’s session, and therefore could experience the strategies as students would--cold. This technique also gave the individual group leader the chance to experiment with adults who could provide valuable feedback as to how the strategy worked. We found that often members reacted very differently to writing prompts—just as our students do.
We then had our text to use as reference for our discussions of how the exercise worked and could work in various classroom situations.

Evaluate the impact of the study group effort on teacher/student performance.

How has this study group changed you as a teacher? Do you anticipate that any of your teaching practices will have changed?

The major assessment was the personal journals created by each participant where individuals experimented with the strategies used that week, included the sample writing and reflected on its merit to the individual’s writing program or grade level. Several times during the writing group meetings, we looked at our established classroom writing assignments and changed their focus or changed way we were looking at a particular writing task so that our students would write with more deep understanding.

What evidence do you expect to see of student achievement improving as a result of your participating in this study group?

The experiences of the group members are being shared within grade-level departments of 5th grade, 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th and 12th grades as well as among the Languages Other Than English teachers. Students at CF have written a wider variety of tasks since these teachers were involved in this group. (Letter writing, personal narratives, creative narratives, current event newspaper analysis, poetry analysis and writing)

What evidence is there that the goals of the study group has/has not been met?

The participants shared over and over that topics and strategies that had been used and discussed in one meeting influenced lessons for the next weeks. One example was the Acrostic Alphabet Poem was adapted to have students write a Self-awareness poem using their names.

Comment on the value of the study group process? Did it work for you?

The study group process was effective for this group since we all shared equally the responsibilities of
leading the group activities based on our text selections from one week to the next. We also shared the
responsibilities of note taking from week to week. No one felt pressure to have “homework” done!

How can we make this study group program better?

The program works very well. The only suggestion is the amount of time set aside to meet is very limited.
To meet ten times for two hours each between January 12-April 9 is challenging if there are snow days.

A final report is due two weeks after the last meeting or by April 13, 2015, whichever date is first. The report must be typed and double-spaced using the provided form. One copy must be submitted in print and the file must be submitted through e-mail to . Return to the Teacher Center (Mail Drop #22), 601 Gates Rd., Vestal, NY

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